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With the really cold weather setting in I was in the mood for a nice warming soup and as luck would have it I had a lot of the Asian style chicken broth leftover from when I made the Hainanese chicken rice. (The Asian style chicken broth is basically the broth leftover from poaching a chicken along with some garlic, ginger and green onions. You can then simmer the chicken bones in the broth to give it an even stronger flavour.) Whenever I eat out at Chinese restaurants one of the things that I like to order is the hot and sour soup and I had been wanting to try making it at home. I figured that the Asian chicken broth would work well in Chinese hot and sour soup and that the hot and spicy soup would be perfect for the deep freeze that we were in.
I found a bunch of recipes for hot and sour soup and used what I liked from each of them to come up with this one. I tried to keep the recipe as authentic as I could and that meant that there were a few ingredients that I was not familiar with including the wood ear mushrooms and the lily buds. Luckily it was easy enough to find them at a local Chinese grocery store.

Although the soup required a bit of prep work it was pretty easy and straight forward to make. As it was cooking I immediately recognized the smell and I was looking forward to the enjoying the soup. Chinese hot and sour soup is supposed to rely on the white pepper for the heat but when I taste tested it near the end I was not satisfied with the level of spiciness so I added a bit more heat in the form of some chili oil and chili sauce (already listed in the recipe below). With the additional seasoning the Chinese hot and sour soup ended up tasting just as good as it smelled! There was a nice balance of heat and sourness and the soup just tasted great! I really like the way the eggs were used in this soup and I will have to keep it in mind when making soups in the future. Luckily there are a lot of leftovers and they will help me through the next few really cold days.

Note: Do the prep for the remaining ingredients while the mushrooms and lily buds are soaking.Option: Use vegetable broth and omit the pork for vegetarian.Option: Use leftover roast pork instead of raw pork.

Oh, boy! Hot and sour soup is one of my favorites. I live really close to a sort of generic Chinese restaurant that makes the best hot and sour soup I've ever had so I haven't had the urge to try making it myself - until now!

'tree ear' is a word for word translation from Chinese, but this fungus grows mostly on the bark of cut-down logs of several kinds of trees. The name came from its shape which somehow resembles that of an ear...the soup looks yummy!

I have been hungry for good hot sour soup! Have been to some Chinese restaurants that don't even come close! The best ever wasin Houston where I used to liveEmpress of China- chef Scott Chen!!OH my!!! Nothing like that here in Idaho!! So I don't have the lilypods or black vinegar but am goingto try this recipe!!

This is just a pet peeve of mine, but I wish people who posted comments (and I'm guilty of this too) would make the dish, then come back and say how it went. Almost always, the comments are "Looks great, hope to try it soon".

Alas, that's all I can offer.

I agree the rice vinegar is key. Although black vinegar is tasty, it's not particularly sour by itself.

Ok, here I am again!! I did makethis last night and it was/is fabulous!!!!! yumI didn't have black vinegar and my oriental chili sauce was the sweet hot kind - lIove a little sweetness in this soup- had dried black fungus and dried shiitake mushrooms didn't have the lily pods or tree ear or bamboo (that isn't the canned kind is it?)- I added sliveredcarrots and celery and green onion - wonderful and also slivered pork and cubes of tofu..great basic recipe to play around with!!!

Where can I ORDER BLACK VINGER also Lily Pad & mushrooms from? Live on a Island in Alaskahave tryed alot of larger places that don't carry Vinger etc , I do alotof mail ordering Anyone out theirthat can give me a www # Thank You!

I've been trying to find the right ingredients to make some from scratch "my way" as well, but so far all we seem to do is use a mix and "doctor" it up a bit 'til it's just like we like. ;)A lot of recipes call for those but I have no clue what they do, and I haven't found any just yet to try for myself.

I found a recipe for hot and sour soup in a book from the public library. It said place a chicken in a pot and boil it all day, then throw away the chicken. I thought that was so funny. I wish I still had that recipe, it was the best I ever tasted.

This recipe missed the boat by a long shot. I am a hot and sour soup fanatic, this is nothing like hot and sour. To all the rave reviewers, have you ever had this soup before at a restaurant? Sorry man, its just not good, period. It literally just tastes like vinigar and water. And yes, I made it by the recipe. I have been trying to replicate hot and sour for 6 years now, still can't make it like the 30-40 different types I have had at Chinese restaurants. Back to the drawing board.

This is a great recipe! I know being Chinese and coming from a family of chefs. Adjust the solid ingredients to your tastes ... meaning we like lots of stuff and less soup. I would omit the black pepper and use white only, fresh bamboo shoots (canned if absolutely unavoidable). Shredding the lily buds does nothing but have them become a non-entity in the soup. For added texture and to bring out the unique taste of them - soak just till pliable and tie a knot in each one, adding them in towards the end of the cooking time. Seemed a bit anal and stupid to me till I tried it. The knot tying comes from Grace Young's recipe. Aged black vinegar is a must - adjust sourness to taste with wine or white vinegar @ the end.

This looks absolutely delicious...it has been too long since I've had this soup. I used to get it at a Mandarin Chinese restaurant near my home town but it burnt down. It was the best hot and sour soup. I like Mrs Bs tips too, sounds good!

All the reviews here are a variation on "looks good", "can't wait to try it", etc. Seems NOBODY'S actually made it, and I'll tell you why. It's VERY, VERY complicated, LOADED with sodium, and requires TONS of unusual ingredients that are not readily available to most shoppers. One person even commented "Where can I order black vinegar and also Lily Pad & mushrooms from? citing that they live on a Island in Alaska. Trust me, even if you DON'T live in a remote Alaskan island, these items ARE very hard to come by. Come on, Kevin...give us something we can use, Jesus Christ!

I made this soup yesterday after a trip to my local Asian market. I have to say, it was quite delicious and way better than many restaurant versions I have had. There is a lot of prep work, as with most Asian cooking, however, it is totally worth it. I made some small changes that don't alter the recipe very much. Instead of dried mushrooms, I used fresh cloud ear and shitakes and added an additional cup of broth to compesate for the lack of soaking liquid. I used a julienned smoked pork chop for the meat portion and instead of using it for the superior stock, I put it into the finished soup. When the soup was done, I adjusted the "hot and sour" by adding an additional 1/2 tsp white pepper, chili oil and black vinegar. Altogether, a great soup. My husband and I each had 3 bowls! Thanks Kevin! I am looking forward to trying your other Asian recipes.

Tried this last week and it was incredible! Thank you for the recipe. The only thing I did differently was to leave the ginger (shredded) in the stock instead of straining it out. And I also added pickled mustard chopped up. It was a winner in this house!

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About Me

I came to realize that my meals were boring and that I had been eating the same few dishes over and over again for years. It was time for a change! I now spend my free time searching for, creating and trying tasty new recipes in my closet sized kitchen.